Monday, May 10, 2010

In his Encyclical Letter Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius XI warned that, "Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.

For, according to Christian teaching, man, endowed with a social nature, is placed on this earth so that by leading a life in society and under an authority ordained of God he may fully cultivate and develop all his faculties unto the praise and glory of his Creator; and that by faithfully fulfilling the duties of his craft or other calling he may obtain for himself temporal and at the same time eternal happiness. Socialism, on the other hand, wholly ignoring and indifferent to this sublime end of both man and society, affirms that human association has been instituted for the sake of material advantage alone." (Nos. 117, 118).

As Dr. Germain Grisez explains, the Church, "Insisting on social solidarity...proposes a nonindividualistic alternative to collectivism. It is that larger societies, with resources (such as revenues from taxation) unavailable to the smaller communities within them, can and should help these smaller communities survive and pursue their own purposes. The ideal relationship is analogous to that of good parents to their growing children: rather than trying to live their children's lives, the parents provide the regulation, support, and encouragement that children need to live their own lives. This relationship of political parties to the smaller communities within them, which involves both respecting their liberty and helping them, is called 'subsidiarity." The principle of subsidiarity, which resists centralization and excludes collectivism, can be formulated this way: the larger society should not absorb the functions of smaller communities when the latter, given suitable help, can fulfill these functions; rather, the larger society should help smaller communities within it to carry out their proper functions. Here subsidiarity (drawn from the Latin word subsidium, which means help) does not mean the smaller community is politically or juridically subordinate to the larger, although that may be so. Rather, it means that the larger community supports smaller ones within it in their proper activities (in practice, supports often means subsidizes with grants of money, but in principle it refers to any kind of help, including regulation and coordination with other segments of the society)."

The ultimate goal of organized socialism is the fully socialized state. A society in which all the means of production are taken from private hands and turned over to the state. There is only one way in which the fully socialized state can succeed. And that is through a total and complete submersion of individual human rights and the institution of a totalitarian regime.

As Robert H. Bork notes in his book "Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline," "In our time...left-wing politics..offers a comprehensive world view and a promise of ultimate salvation in a utopia that conventional politics cannot offer. The religious impulse underlying left radicalism has often been noted. Weber remarked that when certain types of German intellectualism turned against religion, there occurred 'the rise of the economic, eschatological faith ofsocialism.' Not only communism but fascism and Naziism were faith systems of the left, offering transcendental meaning to their adherents.....Modern liberalism, the descendant and spiritual heir of the New Left, is what fascism looks like when it has captured significant institutions, most notably the universities, but has no possibility of becoming a mass movement or of gaining power over government or the broader society through force or the threat of force. Power must then be sought in increments and by indirection.." (p. 85).

And this is precisely what is occurring even now. Incremental socialism is making its advance. It is obtaining power gradually, incrementally. And when it has obtained sufficient power and control of government, we will have the New Order, the totalitarian regime which will serve the Man of Sin.

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Socialists are indeed uniting to neutralize the Catholic Church. Which is why the Socialist Kasama Project has continued its attacks and smear campaign against the Church while promoting Father James Scahill.

By Eric Zimmermann One of the most active anti-gay marriage groups is already taking a stand against the nomination of Elena Kagan.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) issued a statement today declaring that a vote to confirm Kagan "will be a vote for imposing gay marriage on all 50 states."

NOM is worried that Kagan would come down on the liberal side of a pair of potential Supreme Court cases. One seeks to overturn California's Proposition 8, while the second challenges the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage at the federal level as between a man and a woman.

“The brief that Elena Kagan filed as Solicitor General on DOMA explicitly and gratuitously rejected the key legal defense for marriage as the union of husband and wife—that such unions uniquely protect children by encouraging responsible procreation," said NOM President Brian Brown.

"Kagan’s brief was designed to, and in fact will, undermine the legal defense of marriage currently before the federal courts," he added.

Kagan has also angered conservatives by seeking to bar military recruiters from Harvard Law School when she was dean.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) today announced his opposition to President Obama’s nominee, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens.

“As with her nomination to serve as Solicitor General, I remain concerned about Elena Kagan’s record,” Inhofe said. “Now as a nominee to the Supreme Court, her lack of judicial experience and her interpretation of the Constitution also play an important role in my decision to once again oppose her nomination. The position for which she has been nominated has lifetime tenure, and it is concerning that the President has placed such trust in a nominee that has not been properly vetted through a judicial career, having worked mostly in academia and never before as a judge.

“While her service as the Dean of Harvard Law School is an impressive credential, decisions she made in that role demonstrated poor judgment. While there, she banned the U.S. military from recruiting on campus, an issue very important to me. She took the issue even further when she joined with other law school officials in a lawsuit to overturn the Solomon amendment, which was adopted by Congress to ensure that schools could not deny military recruiters access to college campuses. Claiming the Solomon Amendment was ‘immoral,’ she filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in Rumsfeld v. F.A.I.R opposing the Amendment. The Court unanimously ruled against her position and affirmed that the Solomon Amendment was constitutional.

“I am also concerned about the seeming contempt she has demonstrated in her comments about the Senate confirmation process as well as her lack of impartiality when it comes to those who disagree with her position.”

Some free speech advocates are going to be very unhappy with President Obama’s choice for the Supreme Court vacancy, Solicitor General Elena Kagan.

That’s because, as CNSNews.com reports, she argued to the court in September that Congress has the constitutional right to forbid companies from engaging in political speech such as publishing pamphlets that advocate the election or defeat of a candidate for federal office.

The court, in its 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, ruled against Kagan’s contention that the government can limit political speech by corporations.

In a scathing concurrence to the opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts blasted Kagan’s argument.

“The government urges us in this case to uphold a direct prohibition on political speech. It asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern,” he wrote.

“Its theory, if accepted, would empower the government to prohibit newspapers from running editorials or opinion pieces supporting or opposing candidates for office, so long as the newspapers were owned by corporations — as the major ones are. First Amendment rights could be confined to individuals, subverting the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that Kagan was defending a law that represents an illegitimate attempt to use “censorship to control thought.”

He declared, “This is unlawful. The First Amendment confirms the freedom to think for ourselves.”

Conservatives are uniting in opposition to Kagan and say her nomination will boomerang against Democrats.

“What does President gain by putting forward an unabashed progressive, liberal judicial activist?” Leonard Leo, executive director of The Federalist Society, told The New York Times.

“Polling suggests that’s not something that adds a lot of value to his own immediate political objectives.”

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About Me

Born in Bitburg, Germany,
Paul Melanson is a Catholic lay-philosopher and apologist whose work has appeared in many publications and websites including The Union Leader, The Wanderer, Seattle Catholic, Newsblaze, Helium, and Amazines. He has been interviewed by The National Catholic Register, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the television newsmagazine Chronicle.